I Was Suddenly Some Safer Form Of Fire.

And of course there was music, though it was me and my incessant remembering.

Ada Limón, Banished Wonders

As far as words go, crying is louder and weeping is wetter.

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

and how it's hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.

Ada Limón, Mowing

By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. ‘Tis waking that kills us.

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me. The world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign & re-create myself…” 

I say we but it's just an illusion that our hearts beat in unison

Wisława Szymborska, We tr. Regina Grol

He just cried on, this hopeless hard retching as if the tears were shards and each one cut as it came out.

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

To retreat is not feminine, male, or trickery. It is a terror before utter destruction. What we analyze inexorably, will it die? Will June die? Will our love die, suddenly, instantaneously if you should make a caricature of it? Henry, there is a danger in too much knowledge. You have a passion for absolute knowledge. That is why people will hate you.

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

The light is nervous and quiet -

Urszula M. Benka, To the Last Man on Earth, In the Hour of His Death tr. Regina Grol

I look at you as if I were looking for the first time.

Adriana Szymańska, Ode to a Man tr. Regina Grol